Many medical or surgical interventions include penetration of objects, such as tubes, instruments and other medical articles, through the skin and into tissue or cavities in the body of a patient. In certain cases such objects are left in the body for shorter and longer periods, from a few minutes to months or years. Examples of such objects are percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) feeding tubes, tracheostomies, cannulae, catheters and pins for external fixation of bones. Leakage of body fluids often occurs around such penetrating objects. The leaking body fluids often gather around the penetration openings for the objects which can result in maceration of the skin, irritation of the skin, skin infection and even sores.
In order to take care of possible leaking fluid around penetration openings, compresses or pads of cotton wool or other absorbent materials are often wound or laid around the object projecting out of the skin. A slit is often made in such pads to facilitate application thereof in the area around the object. Such pads or compresses are usually affixed to the skin and to the object by self-adhesive tape. Wound dressings or plasters comprising a wound pad and a self-adhesive fixation part are also used. A drawback by such compresses or pads is that they exhibit a wet or moist surface to the skin after having absorbed fluid. Thereby there is still a risk for maceration and skin irritation. Such pads or compresses have to be changed often in order to exhibit a dry surface to the skin. Since the skin around penetration openings often is very sensitive, the frequent changing of absorbent pads or compresses increases the risk for irritation of and damage to the skin which in turn increases the risk for infection to occur.
WO 2007/013912 describes a disposable pin site wound protection system for covering the entry or exit of a surgical pin, wherein the system substantially reduces the time required to change a dressing at a pin site wound. This system comprises a sponge and a clip, both of which are designed to be attached to a pin site wound.
Allevyn Tracheostomy from Smith&Nephew is made of a non-adhesive, cushioned foam having a key-hole shaped hole for application around a tracheostomy tube or on the stoma.
Drawbacks with non-adhesive products are the weak affixing to skin which can increase the risk of leakage and in turn cause skin maceration and even infections.
WO2006/99173 relates to a fork-like device for changing tracheostomy sponges on a patient.
As tracheostomy dressings in hospitals today are often used adhesive dressings or foams cut manually to fit the stoma. Other than a risk of maceration and skin damage there is also a risk of leakage at dressing changes with such non adhesive and non encapsulated foam dressings.
The adhesives of the fixation tapes, wound dressings or plasters usually used for such products usually take portions of the skin away when these products are loosened from the skin. The risk for damage to the skin by frequent changing of such products is thus relatively high if the object projecting out of the penetration opening is disposed in the body of the patient during a long period of time. The changing of such products will also lead to pain to the patient since it hurts when the product is loosened from the skin. Another drawback is that gauzes or other types of absorbent material disposed around such objects will have a wet outside which can soil clothes or the like disposed outside the penetration opening.
Prior art describes the problem of time consuming dressing changes, but it does not describe the problem of exudate leaking out from the wound to the periwound skin causing risk of maceration and bacterial growth on the skin, which can lead to wound infection.
The objective of the invention is to improve a dressing of the kind mentioned in the introduction which is easy to apply and eliminates or at least greatly reduces the drawbacks mentioned above.